1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a slim optical disc drive.
2. Description of the Related Art
Optical disc drives generally radiate light beams onto recording surfaces of compact discs (CDs) and digital video discs (DVDs) using optical pickups sliding along a radial direction of the CDs and DVDs to record data on and reproduce data from the CDs and DVDs. In particular, slim optical disc drives are manufactured very thinly so as to be mounted into portable devices such as notebooks and the like.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional slim optical disc drive. Referring to FIG. 1, a deck 20 is installed so that it slides into and out of a lower case 10. The deck 20 includes a spindle motor 30, which spins an optical disc D, and an optical pickup 50, which irradiates light toward the optical disc D while sliding in a radial direction of the spinning optical disc D to record data on and reproduce data from the optical disc D. A main control board 60 is installed on the lower case 10 to control the operation of the optical disc D. The main control board 60 is connected to the optical pickup 50 and the spindle motor 30 via a Flexible Printed Circuit (FPC) 70. As the deck 20 slides into and out of the lower case 10, the FPC 70 flexibly folds and unfolds within a space between the deck 20 and the lower case 10. For this, a portion of the FPC 70 is adhered onto the lower case 10.
In order to manufacture the slim optical disc drive, the deck 20 has to slide into and out of the lower case 10 while keeping very narrow gaps with the lower case 10. Therefore, key factors to determine the thickness of an optical disc drive are the optical pickup 50 mounted on the deck 20, a motor 40 that slides the optical pickup 50, and the thickness of the spindle motor 30. This is because the total thickness of the optical disc drive may increase to maintain a gap between the deck 20 and the lower case 10 when these parts are put into the optical disc drive.
However, in a case where the optical disc drive has to reproduce data from a CD-ROM and record data on and reproduce data from a CD-RW and a DVD, the thickness and size of the optical pickup 50 increases. Also, the optical disc drive may use thicker parts due to various manufacturing problems. In this case, a space between the deck 20 and the lower case 10 cannot accommodate the total thickness of the optical disc drive. Thus, a portion of the deck 20 in which the thick parts are to be installed may protrude slightly downward.
Since the space between the deck 20 and the lower case 10 are quite narrow, the protruding portion of the deck 20 may interfere with the lower case 10 when the deck 20 slides into and out of the lower case 10. To avoid this interference, the space between the deck 20 and the lower case 10 has to be widened, which causes an increase in the thickness of the optical disc drive.